8 Brutal Romantasy Books Like The Serpent and the Wings of Night

Artist Aurora Harper is convinced that she witnessed a crime, one so brutal and traumatic that she's repressed all memories of it. The only way she can free her subconscious is through her paintings, which capture crimes scenes she's sure she's seen in real life. 

Now she needs her new neighbor, Detective Levi Reid, to help her track down the victim—and her murderer. Levi has his own memory issues to deal with, and he's already enthralled by Aurora to want to help her with what seems like a futile cause. He wants her to be his more than anything else in the world, and not even death will be able to stop him.

Faye has lost the love of her life, her beloved husband Will, and overwhelmed by grief, she wonders why she should even go on living. She's suffered through painful miscarriages, married a man she does not love, and abandoned her career as a photographer. A quick divorce later, Faye takes a job in South Carolina and returns to her passion for photography. 

After an accident, she wakes up in 1921, taking the place of a young woman who drowned there. Stationed at the lighthouse by the coast is Carrick Morgan, a man who bears an uncanny resemblance to Will. Is this a second chance at love for Faye? Grief is a powerful monster, and it will take more than a leap through time to help her heal.

In Highbell, in the castle built into the frozen mountains, everything is made of gold, including Auren. She is the favorite of King Midas, whose touch turns everything to glistening gold. He gave Auren protection in exchange for her loyalty, but when her trust is broken, she realizes that everything she knew about Midas is wrong. 

Auren may live in a gilded world but it is a cage nonetheless, and she'll have to find the courage to break free from these bars and discover the truth about both herself and the man she thought she loved.

Callypso Lillis is a siren with a lot of debt on her shoulders. For the last seven years Callie has been wearing a bracelet of black beads up her wrist, magical IOUs for favors she once received and must pay back or die. There's only one man who can help her, a mysterious figure known as the Bargainer. 

The Bargainer can get you anything, but the price is steep, and he always gets what's owed to him. For Callie, he's never asked for repayment. Not until now. He needs her to save his people, who are under attack and going missing in the Otherworld. Callie must work with him to solve this strange riddle, but the tensions between them are unbearable. Their desire is palpable, but so are their fears.

Four years ago, Lilia's mother was ravaged by a mysterious illness. Since then, she's been on the hunt for a cure. Now, she's been accepted into Dracadia University, one of the oldest, most prestigious schools in the country. Nestled on a secluded island off the coast of Maine, it’s rumored to be haunted by the souls of the mental patients who were once imprisoned there. 

But they're far less unnerving than Devryck Bramwell, the school's pathologist who is nicknamed Doctor Death. He's to teach Lilia everything she needs to know, but it's his stolen kisses that she truly craves. Together, they can find a cure for the disease that destroyed Lilia's family, but only if the ghosts of Dracadia don't overwhelm them first.

All Lenore Warwick wants for her 21st birthday is to hang out with her friends and have a good time. Fate, however, has far more sinister plans for her. She finds herself the captive of Absolon "Solon" Stavig, a centuries-old vampire who can't decide whether to kill Leonore or save her. Leonore, too, is a vampire. She just doesn't know it yet. 

Once Leonore turns 21, everything will change, and Solon hopes to be her guide through her descent into blood and sex. But there are slayers on her tail, as well as other vampires who want to destroy her before she attains her true power. Solon seems to be the only person she can trust, but is that even true?

Reia is known as the black sheep of her village. After Demons ate her family, her community shunned her and left her with an impossible choice: spend her life in prison or allow herself to be the next human sacrifice for the monstrous Duskwalker. She chooses the latter, but all is not what it seems with this mysterious figure with a skull face and glowing eyes. 

Orpheus is his name, and he's lonely. Each decade, in exchange for a protection ward from the Demons that terrorise the world, Orpheus takes a human offering to the Veil—the place where he lives and the home of Demons. These companions' lives are always cut short, leaving him more alone than ever. But Reia is different. She's not afraid of him. Indeed, she seems to desire him as much as he craves her. But he must give her to the Veil. Can he save her before it's too late?

A thousand years ago, Dianna gave up her life in the deserts of Erioa to save her dying sister. She called out for help, hoping that someone would hear her. She didn't expect Kaden, a monster far worse than even her darkest nightmares, to answer. Now, she does whatever he demands of her, and her current task is to find a mythic book that every demonic force in the universe wants to possess. 

Also looking for the book is Liam, a World Ender who was denied his rightful crown and left to hide from the world. Now an attack on those he holds dear sends him back to the one realm he never wished to visit again. He and Dianna have no choice but to trust one another in the hopes of saving their world (and all the others they can only dream of.)